Lunges

Guys seem to enjoy that feeling of soreness in their muscles the day after a work out. The pain of lactic acid build up and minute ripping of soft tissues causing the muscles to ache and swell. I, on the other hand, prefer to keep the weights to a minimum while increasing my reps so I don't have to endure the soreness the following day. I also don't like to grunt and puff and feel my face swell with redness while pushing my last rep. J.Y likes to say that if you're not hurting, you're not working out hard enough. Whatever. If anyone's seen my arms while I work out they'd tell me to ease up, it's so unfeminine. eww..

So on Friday I decided to vary my work out and do lunges instead of leg curls and extensions. Lunges usually work my legs more, but never to the extent of cramps like I experienced that day. My legs wobbled as I stepped forward and I quickly stopped to stretch before I started whimpering in agony. My hamstrings and gluts started to spasm. I couldn't even continue to finish my set. I would never have guessed that I'd be this sore the days after. It's getting better, as usual, but I can barely walk up stairs without using the railing. Last night I couldn't even curl into a fetal position to sleep because it stretched my butt muscles and it HURT!

The saddest part is getting on the toilet. There's no arm rests so I'm anchoring onto the shower door and counter top just to lower myself. It's so pathetic.

Sunday, was a day to sober up and do some cleaning. Since my legs were sore, it gave me an excuse to skip my work out. I laid in bed most of the day reading Angels & Demons. Luckily Tine and DK reminded me where they had parked my car Sat night, otherwise I'd walk out this morning freaking out.

7 miles

At approximately 2:10pm yesterday marked a moment for myself to be proud of. I did my first 7 mile run. I guess from this point on wards it's simply pushing myself to run further and further till I hit 24 miles. But the best part was checking my time...1 hour 6 min 45 sec =) Ok, I wasn't the fastest runner on the trail, but shiet, I was pretty impressed. That just made my day.

V-day weekend bleh..

This year I decided to give myself something for Valentines. Which is great, single people deserve TLC too. On Sunday I walked into Macy's at Hillsdale and was surprised to see the place packed with men leaning over glass counters searching for the perfect gift. Some stood anxiously around the jewelry carousel holding up earings, uncertain on how to judge its' beauty. Boys sampled perfumes and quietly discussed which is best for their girl. I thought it was a very sweet sight. I walked into Express and got myself a pair of pants and shirt. That was good enough for me. I was searching for a jacket too, but I couldn't find one.

So for Valentines evening I went to watch "how we first met" with a friend. We missed the first half since traffic was such a pain trying to reach Fort Mason. The 2nd couple that they interviewed was so boring that there was hardly anything comedic about their relationship. All the girl could say was that she wasn't interested in him at first, and she emphasized it so frequently that it made everyone feel uneasy, does she even like this guy? Though part of the show was funny, I wouldn't recommend it, it's too inconsistent depending on the couple they interview. The first couple was good but we walked out of there feeling rather unsatisfied, especially when we rushed there after work.

We went for dinner at Ana Mandara after. The place was packed with couples.. well, what did I expect? The place is nice, it was a set menu though, so the food was ok. The steak was disappointingly over done. How can a restaurant like that charge what they charge and mess up your steak? I do like their drinks, but I wouldn't care to go there again either.

By the time the night was over, I was just happy to crash into bed. I would've had a better time watching a video by myself and eating instant noodles. I don't know why I felt the need to do something Valentines night. I guess I just like the idea of celebrating special days.

The talk

I spent a total of 1 hour in The Boss' office. Luckily I wore a black collared shirt today 'cuz I never felt so sweaty by just sitting in there trying to maintain my cool. "you want to take this weekend off and another 2 weeks from that?" I searched my room for answers.. yes? "there's no way" Why not? I get vacation time don't I? "oh you want to use those days.." 30 minutes later "... you do want your practice to grow don't you?.. it can't grow unless you put a lot of work into it.. " I want MY practice to grow, not yours bitch. Of course I do, but I also believe in enjoying life to remind myself why I work so hard. "I just want you to understand that if you want to grow you're going to have to put in more than 40 hour weeks and in my first year of practice I never took weekends off" i'm not you.

When did it become so fuckn hard to just ask for a few days off? How am I ever going to go on a long vacation? I'm So friggin pissed.

Food Allergy

My sister Celia has seasonal allergies. Every spring time when the flowers bloom and lawns get clipped, she develops these short mouse like sneezes.. usually consistently rhythmic. Ha choo choo (pause) choo choo choo, it’s her trademark sneeze. We’d like to count how many times she can sneeze in a row. My little sister, Grace, sneezes like that too. They both have lots in common.

So, Celia was the first person to introduce me to the concept of allergies. As I meet more people in life, I'm surprised to learn about all the various allergic reactions out there. My elementary friend P. was allergic to chocolate. As a 10 year old I thought that was the most tragic thing that could possibly happen to someone. I would never wish that upon anyone! Now, diabetes is up there on my tragic life ailments list too. But that’s not an allergy and I don’t want to diverge.

Um…(searching brain, where was I?) There’s common allergies like dogs, cats, nuts etc.. CN is allergic to Brazillian nuts specifically and DK to Mac. A few new ones to me are VA’s allergy to pears/ apples or something like that. I always felt allergies were such a pain. Some people don’t even realize they’re experiencing a reaction and thinks it’s normal to have that itchy feeling in their throat when they eat nuts!

So, I’ve been pretty pleased that I don’t have any allergies. Until today. I’m having this curry for lunch and it’s making my tongue feel numb. Sort of a tingling feeling like there’s a current running through it. I felt this once before when I was trying these Dan Dan noodles at a Chinese restaurant. The noodles were awful and it made my tongue feel numb just like this curry did. Now I’m curios if it’s a reaction or if it’s normal! It's kinda scary.

Lip Balms

I have lip balms everywhere. I've got one in my office drawerer "kiss my face" in Apple flavour. One in my purse, "soft lips" Strawberry flavour, my favourite lip balm. One at home by "Burts Bees". I'd keep one in my car too, but then it'll melt and that's not a good idea. So with three lip balms in rotation, I just realized it's going to take me a hell of a long time to finish just one tube! In fact, I don't think I've ever finished a tube of lip balm before. It always gets lost before I'm done with it. Either that or I get bored with it but mostly lost.

Oh, but there was this one time Boss' 18 month old son got a hold of my lip balm. I used it one day wondering why it was all jacked up, smooshed and moist. Then Baby Boss rolls in shortly and climbs onto my chair as he always does.. awe.. how adorable, he played with my keyboard then reached for my lip balm on top of the number keys and started applying it, sucking on it, dipping his fingers into it! WTF? Boss see's it then decides "oh I forgot to tell you, Baby Boss was playing with your lip balm, he likes it.. it's so cute" Cute? Baby Boss jacked up my favourite lip balm, how cute is that? Ok.. did he not think of taking it away from his son? And after seeing how jacked up it was, did he not think about replacing it? It's just a lip balm, but still, don't let your kid damange other people property and brush it off as OK because he's a kid.

I never applied so much lip balm when I was up in Vancouver, I wonder if there's a side effect of using it so much. Like, my lips will tend to chap more often if I don't use it. But they also serve to protect my lips from UV radiation. It's just one of those things I keep around.

mm.. dinner

I really want to be a better cook. But it’s so hard to cook after work when you’re tired and would rather sit back and boil a pot of water for dumplings or instant noodles. Some nights I like to get fancy and crack an egg in my noodles.. oooh.. Iron chef here I come. Pasta requires a little more work. One pot for the noodles and another pot for the sauce. That’s double the pots, double the clean up. I can also kick that up a notch and add ground beef.

The George Foremen grill is also great, though I haven’t used it in a long time. It makes the grilled chicken or whatever you put in there too tough and chewy, but it sure beats what I had for dinner last night. A Twix bar before my toastmasters meeting and half a bag of Chex mix, a few bites of pineapple during the snack portion of the meeting then I went home. Still feeling unsatisfied I tossed in two chocolate covered macadamia nuts while I searched around the kitchen for food. I reached for two eggo waffles, toasted then buttered. Mm… still hungry. I reached for the remainder of my Chex Mix. It was almost 11pm.. nothing was going to satiate me that night, so I just drank lots of water to rid the salty chex mix and called it a meal.

Outlook help

This post if from MT and me. Does anyone know how to add another account onto outlook? Specifically yahoo and AOL. i know how to add hotmail, it was pretty straight forward, but we don't know what to type in as our "server" or out going server, is it a pop3 account? HTML?? what??? is this even do-able?

Worceshire sauce

Ok, i'm refraining from using a dictionary to spell that word, worceshire. That's not my only problem with that word though. I always mess up it's pronouciation. Everytime I say that word it's like I'm speaking a foreign word, like when I speak Taiwanese or something. When I speak it with my grandma the words sort of roll out. Then when I think of the words too much, I lose it and I forget how to say it and it just doesn't sound right anymore. That's the same as wor-sch-er sauce. Is that how you say it? or wor-cher-shire sauce?

I'm not the only problem with this too! I thought I could blame it on my ESL but M.T. got confused with the word after our lengthy discussion. Moi couldn't spell it either. I wonder if that word ever gets used on Spelling Bees.

(later the same day)

HD runs to CS's door.

"C.S, say wor-scher sauce"
what? wor***** um..
"ok, could you spell it?"
W-O-R-C-***

I"m definetly not the only one.

So with C.S's help she found the spelling for me because I couldn't get it from Dictionary.com my spelling was way too off to be recognizable.

ready guys???

WORCESTERSHIRE

and it's pronounced wus'ter-sher, there's some funky characters on a few of those vowels, but i don't know how to add them on.

phew.. I can now move on with my life.

You oughta know!

I want you to know that I'm happy for you, I wish nothing but the best for you both.
An older version of me Is she perverted like me? Would she go down on your in a theater?
Does she speak eloquently?
And would she have your baby?
I'm sure she'd make a really excellent mother.
'Cause the love that you gave that we made wasn't able to make it enough for you to be open wide, no
And every time you speak her name
Does she know how you told me you'd hold me Until you died,
'til you died
But you're still alive
And I'm here to remind you
Of the mess you left when you went away
It's not fair to deny me
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know
You seem very well, things look peaceful, I'm not quite as well, I thought you should know.
Did you forget about me Mr. Duplicity I hate to but you in the middle of dinner
It was a slap in the face how quickly I was replaced .
Are you thinking of me when you fuck her?
'Cause the love that you gave that we made wasn't able to make it enough for you to be open wide, no
And every time you speak her name Does she know how you told me you'd hold me Until you died, 'til you died
But you're sill alive
And I'm here to remind you
Of the mess you left when you went away.
It's not fair to deny me Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know
'Cause the joke that you laid in the bed that was me
And I'm not gonna fade As soon as you close your eyes
and you know it
And every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back
I hope you feel it...well can you feel it?




pissed? who me? nah...

Toby Lightman-Everyday

Everyday is a struggle between what I wanna say
And what I should keep to myself
And the words that manage to leave my lips
Don't hurt me, but they hurt everyone else
And I find myself in need of a pause
I'm not sure why, but I think that it's because
Of this desire to be what others want me to be
Which is nothing close to me

[Chorus:]But I'll see better when the smoke clears
When the smoke clears inside my head
And I can listen when the screaming doesn't repeat everything I've said
And all that remains me and who I am at the end of the day
And this happens everyday

Everyday is a battle between what I wanna know
And what I don't wanna figure out
And everything in between in these thoughts of mine
That you know I can't live with out
And I find myself in need of a pause
I'm not sure why, but I think that it's because
Of this desire to be what others want me to be
Which is nothing close to me

6 miles

I did my sencond off-treadmill 6 mile run yesterday. The first time was Thursday when I got 2.5 miles into the run and debated if I should turn back. Since I wasn't winded yet, I went the extra .5 miles, making the round trip 6 miles. I was definetly proud of myself. I tried it again yesterday, and I think I can make it a routine distance now. I'm aiming for a marathon, but with Van's advice I'll try not to leap too far and look for a half marathon to do. The trail I run is 6 miles one way. I've considered running the whole way, which would leave me no option but to run the whole 12 miles to get back. But I"ll leave that for a stupid day when I feel like killing my legs. Why do I run? Aside from the good workout, I like the euphoric feeling it leaves me. It helps pump up my adrenalin and relieve everyday stress. On bad days, I'll take out my frustrations on the trails and run harder. Then I get winded and too tired to think of anything but my aching thighs, butt, chest. Plus I think it depletes the sugar from my brain leaving me incapable of thinking too much. Which apparently is a common problems with women. There's even a book about it. I get this little buzz in my brain and though it only lasts a few minutes after the run it's the only time my mind is clear of all the shit I breath in everyday.

The other night during a few drinks the topic of the "ultra marathon man" came up. He's a 40 something year old San Franciscan, a husband and father. One night after an upsetting evening with his friends, he took off running from S.F. all the way to Half Moon Bay. He started running from that point on. Now he plans on running one marathon a day through the 50 states! That's 26.4 miles FYI. Now, I'm not going to take off one day and run my way home to Vancouver or anything, but I can see how running works for some people. I just have to make sure I don't injure myself while training. I can already feel my ITB giving problems.

Lesson 2

I've had 2 guitar lessons so far. I wasn't sure how the instructor had planned on teaching the course. How was he going to present materials to students who knew how to read music and those who don't? Well, he simply layed out the music sheet and roughly tought us how to read. I was ok with it since I already know music, but it sure pissed the hell out of MT and now she isn't planning on going anymore. It is very boring though. We spend the whole time playing scales on the guitar and some simple music pieces such as the "ode to joy". We haven't learned to play chords yet, and it doesn't look like he's going to teach them until the very end. Which really sucks because we won't be learning any cool music. bleh...

6 days later

May 2004 till the end of the year 2004 seemed to have flown by. Nearly everyday was spent trying to accomplish the same task. Trying to get through the day. Normally when the new year rolls around, I spend a good month correcting written dates " mm/dd/2004". But this year, it didn't seem to bother me at all. It didn't take much thought to scribble 2005. In fact, 6 days later, I haven't made a mistake at all. In retrospect, I haven't accomplished much in the past year. I've done alot. Alot of moving that is. But I've achieved so little. Looking around, I think alot of people were happy to step into a new year, hoping for a better future. In terms of relationships, it seems as though 2004 was filled with break ups and divorces. The closest people around me all seemed to have been struggling in emotional turmoil. And coincidentally, those issues seemingly resolve on their own around this time. It's as though we all decided to start the New Year with a clean slate. Throw away your baggage. Hm, this is sounding a little blue.
On the brighter note, I start my guitar lessons next Tuesday night. Finally learn what to do with that thing. It's been collecting dust in the corner of my room and painfully out of tune. I"m tired of playing the same CGDA chords. I tried palying silent night for the holidays, but never mastered it. Hopefully by the summer time I can play somthing decent.

Happy New Year! 2005

How can this be? 4:35 Am and I am still awake! This is unlike me, and rather frustrating. I can't sleep. I don't know how to cope with this force that's keeping me awake. I never had to deal with it before. New Years Eve was alright, I was in good company but the crowd was 100% Asian. They were So Asian, plenty of people were speaking Chinese. I haven't been in that kind of crowd since Vancouver. In addition, geeky guys attempting to dance and picking up chicks. It's a sad sight. Girls dressed in haulter tops and skirts that barely cover their asses, guys digging the scene just to be stared down by the same girls dressed for selective attention. I'm buzzed. I can't sleep. And blogging isn't helping. I can't stand laying in bed more than 5 minutes without being able to fall asleep! blah..

back to work

This scene is vaguely familiar. Sitting in front of my computer at work blogging because The Boss is away for the week. Except he's not completely away, he's still in town, and had already paid us an unexpected visit at 10:30am this morning. He walked through the front door dressed in an unfamiliar green parka with an orange cap. I thought he was the electrician or something. We were all standing near the front desk bitching about work, only one of us recognized him and she walked up front to greet him. But as she approached him he was already walking towards us and caught us in the middle of discussion. Luckily we were weren't saying too much.

There's a heavy tension in the air between the staff and The Boss. I can sense the day approaching when he's going to get rained on by all of us. It's already happening, one member at a time, by the two bravest (most confrontational) one's, of course. So far, I just sit back and listen to their triumphant stories and wish I had the nerves to step up and give him a piece of my mind. Except I need to formulate my thoughts thoroughly before I step in there and get fired or end up quitting myself.

Listening to all the bickering is probably one of the best learned lessons for myself. At some point I will become The Boss and I only hope the bitching that goes on behind my back will not be as intense. I'm not ignorant to the fact that this sort of office gossip does happen and there will be several occasions when I will be disliked. But this environment sure doesn't shed light on how to keep your staff happy.

Anyhow, to brighter things. I drove down to Irvine to visit some cousins from Taiwan. A 6 hour drive through 152 and I5. 152 was really nice. I5 was boring as usual. If you stole a car on I5 with THE CLUB on it, you can probably drive pretty far on that straight road. To make that road worse, there was heavy fog that slowed traffic down from 100mph to 50mph. It's those drivers who think their fast (driving on the fast lane) that blocks up all the traffic. oh wait, brighter subjects..... it was nice seeing my two not so little cousins again. 18 and 19 with make up on and shopping for V-neck sweaters that drop down to their belly. The sweater was made of light see through cashmere. "What do you wear underneath that?", "nothing" replied the 18 years old, with eyes wide not understanding the point of my question. Fine.

For dinner we went to this really good Japanese restaurant, newly opened by two chefs who branched off on their own. We ordered loads of Sashimi and bottles of cold Sake. Damn, those girls can shop AND drink. Then again, anyone can out drink me. The following night their mom calls me asking me to remind her girls to "study hard" "behave", the typical chinese stuff. I was actually thinking how nice it is that they've finally caught up to age and can "play" with the rest of us.

New Hours

My Boss decided to have new hours for our office. I no longer get to sleep in on Tuesdays and I have to work every Sat. as opposed to getting to sneak a few saturdays off. I'm so bitter about my losing my Tuesday mornings. That's the only day I get to wake up an hour later, work out then have a decent breakfast. I can almost hear some of you say there's lots of people who work 50 hour weeks blah blah blah. I dont' give a crap, pay me a lot more and I'll put in my extra hours too. I was starting to feel comfortable at my job but this was the first week I woke up daily wondering how to get myself out of that hole.

counting down

4 more days till I get my break. This thought is making my week very long. What am I going to do during my break? I think I'll go hiking everyday, then once I hit the peak, just sit and read a little then hike back down. Either that or I'll end up at the mall shopping more for myself. and god forbid I just sit at home doing nothing. Am I even capable of doing that? I'll end up reading, watching TV and doing laundry at the same time.

This past weekend I went bar hopping with my friends. I managed to stay awake the whole night till we got in the car. I was very proud of myself. My formula is to workout an hour before I leave and drink lots of coffee and water after the workout. The dehydration seems to help suck the caffeine into my body better.

Tis the season

To be shopping fa la la la la

For every gift I've made this season I seem to have doubled one for myself too. This Christmas is getting to be very expensive. Due to my lack of discipline on keeping to "the list" , "the list" I'm having to shorten the list or find cheaper gifts. oops.

This week has been very slow at work. I often find myself walking to the staff "lunch" room to be entertained by the millions of ants attacking the cookies there. I love my co-workers, but for some reason they just don't get it. Ants are crawling all over this bowl of packaged cookies that they managed to rip their way into. I don't know where to begin to clean them up. They're pouring out of the bowl like a black waterfall. Today I tried using tape. I got so bored so I grabbed packaging tape and placed a few strips on the counter. I left it at that. Maybe that'll help disperse them. Hold on, let me go check. um, No, I think they called for back up instead.

Thank god it's Friday

There they go.

This month two friends will be leaving the Bay Area. Friends are hard to come by, and it's so sad to see two take off just like that. I'm so proud of them. I know some of us are unsatisfied with the stage we are in our lives. I've often considered moving and leaving this place too, but I'm scared. So, to see two of them packing up, moving far far away to achieve what they want is very inspring for me. It's do-able, things will be ok and I could leave if I want. Will I do it? Probably no time soon, still to chicken shit.

Gosh, with those two gone who's going to share my MJ with me?

Squirl's been a good friend from the start, we hit it off with a comfort level like sisters share. You know, the one where you can bitch at eachother and know it's ok 'cuz there's no escaping this relationship. But alas, she's taking her loud Cosmopolitan/Malibu Orange voice to a city large enough to accomodate her vocal range. The next two weeks will be dedicated towards doing things squirl's been wanting to do, but never got the chance to do in the Bay Area. Like going to the mystery spot. Gosh, that place is boring, but I already made a point that i'm only going if I get to be drunk when I step in. Maybe it'll counter balance my drunken equilibrium.